


Don’t Worry, Babe (I’ll Take Care of You in the Dark)

by MarbleAide



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Fake Gore, Halloween, Haunted Houses, M/M, Slight Hints of Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3735514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleAide/pseuds/MarbleAide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bart decides to drag everyone to a Haunted House walk a week before Halloween so they really get into the spirit of things! Tim is very much not amused, but somehow gets very aroused. </p><p>[Will become explicit in chapter 2!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t Worry, Babe (I’ll Take Care of You in the Dark)

**Author's Note:**

> Literally because I watched a haunted house movie and wanted Jason working in one. Somehow it turned into this. Enjoy!

“You’re coming, right?”

“Oh my god, Kon, shut _up_ and stop giving him an option! There _is_ no option. The tickets have been bought, he’s coming.” 

Tim rolls his eyes while staring down at his textbook. Honestly, he doesn’t know why he keeps the video chat open whenever he studies. It’s just become a habit for the three of them, honestly. Even if they all go to the same school now and it’s a little ridiculous because Tim just saw them for lunch six hours ago and there are long periods where none of them say anything or are even on screen. Still, they always fall back into the same ritual of chatting while apart, coming home at night to pull it up and tune in to watch Conner play video games or Bart speed through homework.

“Tim,” Bart’s voice cuts through his thoughts, making him look up from his chem. Textbook to stare almost boring up at his computer to the box that contains Bart’s very, very, serious looking face. “You’re _coming_.”

Tim scoffs. “I thought you were going to visit Jaime this weekend?”

“Nope,” Bart pops the ‘p’ out of his mouth with a smile, knowing for a fact that Tim is just trying to come up with excuses. “He’s coming up for the party next weekend—which you are also going to—“ Tim held his wince, seeing as he had been planning to attempt getting out of that too. “—but this weekend we are all going to the haunted house. I’ve been planning this since October _started_.”

“Bart, come on, I have a test to study for.”

Both Conner and Bart groan at this and if they hadn’t known each other for so long, Tim might have been offended.

“Dude! That test is on Tuesday, it’s Friday night! We’re going to the haunted house Saturday—you’ve got two solid days to study!”

It’s a useless attempt and Tim should know better by now that when the two of them start ganging up on him, there’s not much room for Tim to escape. So, he sighs heavily in defeat, hating himself for it. Looking up, he can see both of his friends trying to hide their grins of triumph. Jerks.

“Fine, fine, you win.” He grumbles, glaring softly as he turns back to his chem work, trying to concentrate on that instead of thinking about tomorrow night.

—

Tim just doesn’t get it. Bart, Kon, and even Cassie has tried to explain it to him about five times on the drive out to the abandoned factory turned haunted house walk during the month of October. Why would anyone pay twenty dollars a person to walk around getting scared for over an hour? Apparently it has something to do with the adrenaline rush (Cassie), trying to get in the holiday spirit (Bart), not everyone gets scared (Kon), and it’s fun (all of them). Tim gives up his complaining when they’re halfway there, turning to ask Bart how far away this place is because they’ve been driving for an hour already and they’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere at this point with all the fields they’ve past.

It takes another hour to get there, signs popping up when they were about ten miles away with images of clowns with daggers, people with their eyeballs falling out, and tons of fake blood on everything reading which direction to turn and how far away the Factory of Hell (or something like that, Tim’s not paying that much attention) is.

“This isn’t one of those extreme ones, right?” Cassie asks as they pull off the highway and turn onto a dirt road that makes the car rumble around against the gravel. “Like, they’re not going to grab us and throw us out of windows and all that insane shit, right?”

Bart doesn’t answer for a second, two, and suddenly everyone is looking back at him—Kon’s eyes glaring at him from the rear view mirror, his foot pulling off dramatically on the gas. After a full minute of silence, Tim elbows the younger boy hard in the side, making Bart yelp.

“Ow! Shit, Christ, no! It’s not one of those. I like getting scared, not tortured! No touching, no safewords, we’re fine!”

“Wow, wait—there’s haunted houses with safewords?” Kon’s curiosity peaks. He’s only ever heard of the ‘extreme’ haunted walks, but not ones that require safewords.

Bart just rolls his eyes as he rubs his arm. As if he’s the expert on this sort of thing (which, okay, he’s the best out of the four of them right now). “Yes—they’re fucked up. Like, you have to eat stuffs or get water boarded or whatever. It’s sort of insane. Cool, but insane.”

Tim’s now looking at him as if Bart is insane, because the look in his eyes is saying much more ‘cool’ than ‘insane’ and he really needs to warn Jaime that next year Bart should probably stay far away from any sort of haunted house that is described as ‘extreme’. Seriously, that kid was starting to get a weird complex or something.

Cassie like the answer at least, nodding her head in approval as Kon speeds up again, getting closer and closer to the ominous looking building growing on the horizon. “Good, because if anyone tries to grab me I’m punching them in the face.”

The rest of the drive is pretty much filled with Bart explaining all the weird things that happen in different haunted houses—in the extreme ones, the ones that are actually said to be haunted, the rumors that circulate about real organs and body parts being used as props. By the time they actually pull up to the factory, everyone is pretty grossed out and Tim has taken it onto himself to try to cover Bart’s mouth to make him shut up.

The parking lot is already pretty full by the time they get there. It’s already ten at night, which means they probably won’t be getting back home until at the very least two in the morning. At the very least, Tim’s used to getting no more than three hours of sleep on normal nights.

Walking up to pick up the tickets, Bart’s completely giddy, way too excited about walking around in the dark having people in make-up jump out at him. Kon’s joking about Bart needing one of those child leashes again, says he swears up and down that he’s buying Bart the monkey one for Christmas so next time they go out they won’t have to worry about him disappearing like he always does.

The line is long, winding in and out of what Tim can only assume used to be a docking bay of the used-to-be-factory. The walls are covered in rust, peeling paint, and splashes of blood too bright to be real. From the sealing hang chains hooked with cut off limbs and bones, heads, and a full body or two swinging whenever the people in line push it as they pass. It’s all very corny, in Tim’s opinion, knowing right now he’s been more scared of lecture classes then he has of any of this stuff.

“Hey there, pretty.” A cool sound whispers right in his ear, making Tim jumped and spin around, bumping into Cassie.

The guy chuckles, leaning back from where he had just about had his lips pressed to Tim’s ear. Knowing that he was that close makes Tim’s face to red, covering the ear the stranger whispered into, feeling the skin there going hot.  

He’s tall, defined, and lean with broad shoulders that look to be rivaling Kon’s own. He’s shirtless, torso covered in lines of scars that Tim’s actually not sure are special effects, but the dim lighting isn’t helping him confirm that. He’s got a fake wound at his side, torn up tissue, with his face holding a similar scar at his cheek, blood dried and dripping down. The guy’s hair is dark with a tuft of white, spiked and messy. His eyes are the stereotypical scary-horror-ice-blue contacts that make his eyes look like they’re open way too wide, like he desperately needs to see an eye doctor.  He’s wielding a bowie knife comfortably and looking all too pleased with himself.

Tim’s brain also adds in how nice his arms look, how square his jaw is, and how his legs looks insanely long in the tight black pants, tucked into combat boots.

Tim swallows. The guy is still smiling.

“See you inside, pretty.” He replies, points the knife right at Tim before bringing it up to his tongue to lick at the blade. It looks solid and shiny and real and Tim forces himself to look away right before the guy is walking off to go scare more patrons waiting in line.

“Goddamn,” Cassie is the one to break the silence, her eyes drawing back from where she had watched the guy disappear into the crowd. “If he’s the crazy murdering psycho, sign me up.”

“Cass!” Kon hisses, glaring as she turns back to him with a smile and has to pepper his face with kisses for the jealousy to ease away so he doesn’t start sulking. It doesn’t help much that she keeps calling him a ‘big baby’ in between kisses.

By the time the line’s moved enough that it’s their turn to go in, a conga line placement has been determined between them, with Bart in front followed by Cassie, Kon, and Tim completely the tail. They’ve each got a fist full of the other’s shirt so they don’t lose each other in the dark (Tim has to wonder how big this thing is that they’d get lost, isn’t it all just a straight-line maze sort of set up?).

It’s all very standard ‘haunted house’ sort of stuff, Tim figures. Not that he’s ever been to one besides this, but he’s sure all the other ones round the country are similar. There’s all sorts of wall slamming that makes everyone jump. Most of the actors get in Bart’s face because he can’t stop smiling and Tim can tell his lack of fear is pissing them off. There’s strobe lights that make everything look like it’s spinning, massive amounts of fake blood, body parts, weapons of all sorts. There’s steam and fog and rooms with things that move and people that pop out of the walls. At one point, they walk into spiral vortex like place that Tim actually finds rather impressive and fun with its disorienting movements.

They filter out into the halfway mark that opens into a space with proper lighting and places with setups to take pictures with props and some of the actors. Of course, Bart insists on getting a group picture with every single one of them—zombies, weird skeleton things, the creepy doll lady. He takes a few selfies with each too, tapping away on his phone which indicates he’s sending things to Jaime.

Finally, after Bart gets his fill of touching everything he can, they move on to part two of their grand haunted walk. It’s much of the same, but this time around there are entire sections dedicated to killer clowns instead of killer factory workers.

The clowns go a little far in trying to get a rouse out of them all, following them for long periods through the semi-darkness and blurring the lines with the ‘no touching’ rule. They make a mistake by getting too close to Cassie, grazing her arm, which makes her react with a swift kick that makes the rest of the clowns back off quickly. They’re all giggling about it by the time they leave that area and move on to the next.

This one is dark. Like, pitch-black-can’t-see-shit-dark. It makes the four of them pause before moving further inside, mostly because Bart can’t see where he’s trying to direct him. Tim remembers there being an advertisement at the ticket booth about having a ‘labyrinth of nightmares’ section, or something like that, and guesses this is just that. It’s silence in the darkness except the occasional scream that sounds sort of faint and echoes around them.

“Shit,” Tim hears Kon breathe out in front of him, right before Bart finally decides to start moving their little group forward.

It takes him about half a second to run into a wall.

“Ow, ow, fuck! Ow! Back up, wrong way. This shit is seriously a maze.” He hisses, and there’s a jumble of back tracking and trying to find their way in the dark.

This time around, Tim feels likely unnerved, because besides the maze and darkness, there’s nothing else ‘scary’ around them. There’s nothing at their feet, no special effects, no one jumping out around corners trying to scare them. It feels…off, almost. Like there should be something else there, but there’s not.

They move slowly through the space, dark narrow hallways feeling as though their growing even more narrow with every foot they take. The halls turn sharply and Bart, as always, is moving too fast, or trying to, which makes them all jerk against the grasp they have on each other’s backs. There’s a lot of cursing, grumbling, and Bart runs into hard halls twice more before Tim determines they’ve made it halfway through the maze.

They get to a small passage with air blowing out of it, inflatable walls pressing together, which forces them to push through the tight space. It’s difficult keeping hold on Kon with the pressure of the walls around him and how quickly Kon is pushing through himself. After a few seconds, Tim’s grip slips from the back of Kon’s t-shirt and he curses, arms now free to push and shove how he pleases, however.

By the time Tim stumbles out of the small space, he’s thoroughly irritated and still can’t see shit, even though he’s sure his eyes have adjusted to the darkness.

“Kon? Fuck—Cassie? Bart? Where the hell did you guys go?” He calls out, hands held out in front of him as he continues moving, not wanting to hit his face against a wall. This place isn’t a small, narrow corridor though. It’s wider, much wider, and Tim has to step at least seven times before his hands touch the hard surface of the furthest wall. He curses now, wondering if he’s taken some wrong turn in that inflatable wall place or if his friends moved on without noticing he wasn’t with them.

“Goddamnit…”

“What’s wrong, pretty?” The same voice from before asks in his ear, just as close as the first time. “Lost? Told you I’d see you again.”

Tim definitely jerks forward and spins, hating himself for it, but seriously where the hell did that guy come from? Tim should have felt him behind him, he was big enough, or at the very least felt his body heat.

The guy is laughing just like last time. Tim gets but a glimpse of him before he’s backing away into the darkness where Tim’s eyes can’t see into.

Tim’s not sure in what circumstances you start conversing with a haunted house worker, knows the creep just wants a reaction like the rest of them, but right now it really is unnerving being alone with someone whose job it is to scare the shit out of you.

“What’s wrong?” The guy calls back from the dark when the Tim says nothing. “Cat got your tongue? Too scared? Your friends ran off without you…”

Tim’s trying to follow the direction of the voice, but it’s hard to do when he has no idea how big the space is and the noise seems to bounce off of everything.

“I’ll help you get out, pretty. Just got to give me something in return…”

His heart is racing against his urges to keep it steady, his breathing is growing more rapid. Tim reminds himself that it’s a damned haunted house—it’s a Halloween attraction meant to get people to scream for two seconds and it’s not like the guy is even allowed to touch him. He’s fine, he’s safe, nothing is going to happen.

“What do you say, pretty thing?” The voice is right next to him again, making Tim jump away as the guy is right there, right next to him, leaning against the wall like it’s his damned job (it _is!_ ), fake-wound hip jutting out, and staring at Tim with those fake-scary eyes. He holds out his knife, smiling, and Tim shudders. “I’ll just cut off a small piece for payment and you’ll be back with your friends in no time…”

The flat of the knife is pressed against Tim’s cheek, metal hard and cold and very, very, real against his skin, definitely not plastic, and that’s when Tim finally can’t stand it anymore and bolts.

It takes him a second in the dark to find a space in the room that’s supposed to be an exit. The entire time he can hear the guy laughing behind him, the sound of it deep and dark like some personification of a perfectly roasted cup of black coffee and Jesus Christ, Tim really hates himself for thinking so poetically about some psycho haunted house worker.

He keeps moving until he’s sure the laughter isn’t following him, is sure it’s getting softer and it’s not just the way the sound echoes against the walls. His heart rate is way up and he really isn’t appreciating this darkness anymore. It still takes him another three minutes to find his way out, pressing through another inflatable wall passageway at this time ends in a heavy black current that Tim throws away with a heavy gasp.

He’s outside now. The air is cool against his too-warm face and he’s breathing deeply, getting the fresh air into his lungs.

“Tim!” He hears Conner call out, making him look up at his friends just a few feet away. “Sorry for losing you in there, we were waiting and—are you alright?” Kon’s looking down at him, a hand on his shoulder, and Tim manages to even out his breathing and school his features.

“I’m fine, yeah, just…just had a run in with that weird guy from the beginning—didn’t you see him?”

All three of them shake their heads and look slightly concerned. Except Bart, of course, who is tapping his foot impatiently as he wants to move on.

“We didn’t see anyone, it was just dark and confusing. We only just managed to find our way out a few minutes before you did.” Cassie explains, making sure that Tim is actually alright before she lets Bart push them onward.

Luckily, the rest of the haunted house is an outside corn maze that has the usual actors jumping from around corners and props set up in the tall stalks. Nothing else looks overly real, all of it back to being totally fake and usual, which only makes Tim think about the cold press of that blade on his skin and the guy holding it even more.

The corn maze empties out near the parking lot and the back of the factory (which is a good thing that it’s over now, because the last guy to jump out at them nearly got punched in the face by Kon—to which, Kon kept saying he wasn’t _scared_ , it was just _reflexes_ which none of them believe). It’s half an hour past midnight and Tim feels exhausted, drained, even as Bart cheers, fist in the air, telling them all they should go through all over again.

Kon and Cassie shout at the same time “No!”

Despite it all, Tim’s smiling fondly from everything, feeling a little lighter now that they’d been outside for the last portion of it instead of inside, plus all of his friends seemed to have enjoyed themselves plenty.

All goes well until they’re walking to the car and Tim comes to a halt when he seems an all too familiar figure standing lazily against one of the nearby walls next to a fire exit, smoking away on a cigarette between his lips. Tim feels his heart flutter and thump suddenly, his face heating up a little bit as he’s too slow to drag his eyes away when the guy turns and looks at him, their eyes meeting. The guy smiles at him, teeth white and sharp looking as he stares Tim down.

“Hey there, pretty.” The voice has less of the threatening baritone in it and more of something that sounds less forced, less like gravel, but still dark roasted coffee. “Didn’t scare you too much, did I?”

Tim can’t help it as his jaw clenches, his hands ball into fists, and he stalks closer. Honestly, he has no idea what he’s doing or even what he’s going to say, but this asshole seriously needs to know that fucking knife thing didn’t exactly follow the damned rules.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

The question seems to take the guy by surprise for a moment, his brow lifting up at Tim’s anger, but a smile is twitching at the corner of his lips.

“Excuse me?” The guy asks, dropping the rest of his act pretty quickly, even if he is still dressed up in all the blood and gore.

Tim curls his nose and asks again, slower. “Your problem? What is it? Because that bullshit you pulled back there with the knife—“

“It’s blunt, kid.”

Tim wheels back, blinks like a deer caught in the headlights.

The guy huffs, throwing the last bit of his cigarette down to crush under his heel before pulling out the bowie knife from his back pocket, showing it off to Tim, turning it to let it glimmer in the moon light.

“The edge isn’t sharp, it’s round at hell, see?” He proceeds to show an example by running it against his throat over and over again, the pressure solid as Tim can see the way the soft skin there bends in, though no cuts are made, barely even a mark besides the soft red line formed by force that quickly fades away. “I wasn’t actually going to cut you, pretty thing.” The guy’s grinning as he slips the knife back into his pants, pushing off the wall. “Relax.”

“Tim,” Tim says, has no idea why, but he’s licking his lips afterward. “My name is Tim.”

The guy’s brow arches even further. “Aw, Timmy. Think you should be giving your name to perfect strangers?”

“I wouldn’t call you perfect.”

The laugh he gets this time is a little bit brighter than the one he heard in the haunted house. It makes his chest tighten and Tim suddenly realizes he has no idea what he’s doing, has no idea where this is going, has never actually done something like this.

“Shit, kid, you wound me.” The guy’s grinning now, a genuine looking smile that makes Tim’s stomach clench. He wonders what he looks like without all the make-up on; wonders what color is eyes actually are.

“I—“

“Jay!” A new voice calls, head popping out from the fire exit door. It’s a guy in tattered clothes and copious amounts of fake blood—he’s drenched from head to toe, the horrible sticky red matting his hair down. Tim thinks he remembers the guy had been wriggling on the ground, contorted into shapes he hadn’t exactly thought possible and certain didn’t look comfortable. He’s glaring at Tim’s stranger—Jay—who turns to glare right back.

“What?”

“Break’s over, back to your dark corner.”

Jay scoffs, gives a soft snarl before waving the new guy off, saying he’ll be there in a second, which seems to appease the other after a few beats, the contortionist disappearing back behind the door.

“Come here, kid.” The guy says, gesturing until Tim moves forward and then grabs his wrist as soon as he’s within reach.  Tim half thinks to struggle against the tight hold right before Jay pulls a sharpie marker from seemingly nowhere and starts scrawling something against Tim’s palm. “You ever want to get scared again, call me.”

Jay gives him another wide grin before moving off to get back inside. Tim watches him go, watches him long after he’s gone from sight behind the door. And then, finally, Tim blinks, looks down at his hand where in sharp jagged writing he has a name—Jason—right above a phone number that Tim finds he’s already memorizing.

He somehow managed to get the number of a guy who scared the shit out of him in a haunted house.

Fuck.

He’s broken out of his stupor by the call of his name.

“Tim!”

He turns, quickly heading back over to where his friends are waiting, staring at him as he scrambles into the car, face bright red and still wondering what exactly just happened.

Bart, nosy as ever, leans towards him to get a glimpse right before his eyes go wide and he makes a squeaking noise.

“Tim got his number! Tim got that hot scary dude’s _number_! “

It seems surreal right up until Bart shouts it out for everyone else to hear, to which Tim once more elbows him hard and Cassie has to stop their fighting while Kon threatens to ‘turn this car around!’ in his the most dad voice he can muster (which means he sounds just like Clark).

After a few more minutes, Bart and Tim finally settle down and most of the drive home is made in silence. It’s nice, quiet; the roads are open and empty as they make their way back home to sleep in all Sunday.

“Hey,” Bart whispers out when they’re right on the edge of campus, his eyes bright with realization. “Maybe this time Tim’ll actually have a date to one of our parties.”

That got a solid kick out of Tim, making Bart groans softly, rubbing at his thigh.

“You totally deserved that.” Tim heard Cassie whisper, smiling at her words because Bart totally did.

And, besides, maybe he will have a date to the Halloween party next weekend. _Maybe._


End file.
